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Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
Feb. 17th, 2018 05:17 pmFull disclosure: I own almost every Poirot episode and movie starting David Suchet, and have seen every episode and movie two or more times, except for Curtains, which I've only seen once.
This is one of those movies that is a perfectly decent movie in and of itself, but is...not good in terms of being an adaptation of the source material. The acting and production values and costuming can't really be questioned, but it...was not Poirot. Kenneth Branaugh is an excellent actor, but he's physically all wrong for Poirot. Poirot is small and egg shaped. You don't take him seriously until he opens his mouth to explain exactly how you are going to fail at your life because you tied your shoes wrong, and through no fault of his own, Kenneth Branaugh will never be considered small or unnoticable. He has a "larger than life" air about him no matter what he does.
But really, Murder on the Orient Express, though one of the more famous and acclaimed Poirot stories, is very much not a standalone. I mean, the plot works well as a standalone, but the character work for Poirot doesn't because because, while the final resolution of the mystery is effective any way you do it (unless you just do it terribly) what it means for Poirot himself isn't felt as much if you don't have a history with Poirot.
So while I get why they chose this as the first movie for a potential new Poirot franchise, I think it was also a bad choice for the story to choose to introduce a new Poirot.
Apparently they're doing Death on the Nile next, which should be interesting. I grew up watching the Peter Unistov versions of that and Evil Under the Sun because my parents had them on VHS. (But not any of the others. Don't know why.)
This is one of those movies that is a perfectly decent movie in and of itself, but is...not good in terms of being an adaptation of the source material. The acting and production values and costuming can't really be questioned, but it...was not Poirot. Kenneth Branaugh is an excellent actor, but he's physically all wrong for Poirot. Poirot is small and egg shaped. You don't take him seriously until he opens his mouth to explain exactly how you are going to fail at your life because you tied your shoes wrong, and through no fault of his own, Kenneth Branaugh will never be considered small or unnoticable. He has a "larger than life" air about him no matter what he does.
But really, Murder on the Orient Express, though one of the more famous and acclaimed Poirot stories, is very much not a standalone. I mean, the plot works well as a standalone, but the character work for Poirot doesn't because because, while the final resolution of the mystery is effective any way you do it (unless you just do it terribly) what it means for Poirot himself isn't felt as much if you don't have a history with Poirot.
So while I get why they chose this as the first movie for a potential new Poirot franchise, I think it was also a bad choice for the story to choose to introduce a new Poirot.
Apparently they're doing Death on the Nile next, which should be interesting. I grew up watching the Peter Unistov versions of that and Evil Under the Sun because my parents had them on VHS. (But not any of the others. Don't know why.)